Let’s Keep Clear The Difference Between Being Hacked And Cloned On Facebook

I keep seeing people indicate that they’ve been hacked on Facebook when I’m pretty sure they meant their account was cloned. There are different things that can happen and I really want to keep them separate. How we interact with you depends on what happened.

Hacked generally means someone tricked you into giving up your password and/or managed to crack it. The malefactor can then post as you, given that they have access to your actual account.

Cloning is different. Cloning is generally evidenced by people who you are already friends with receiving a friend request from you. The name and some of the details will match, along with some of the pictures, usually. It isn’t your account though. The malefactor has not gained access to your account. They have merely obtained info visible to others from your profile, created a separate account that looks like yours, and started sending out friend requests in order to build up credibility before they start trying to use the account to scam people.

Why is it important to know the difference? Well, I’m generally going to back away entirely from hacked people until they get things straightened out, because I don’t know who they really are and can’t trust them. Cloned I still interact with, but avoid the cloned account. Heck, I can sometimes spot these on my own and let the real person know. You just report the clone to Facebook and it’s usually gone pretty fast…but we generally have to know if you mean cloned or hacked in order to know how to behave.

There is a difference.